Virgin unveils digital travel pass and calls for curbs to be lifted for vaccinated holidaymakers
Virgin Atlantic is launching a hi-tech digital travel “health pass” to help UK travellers take to the skies again. From Monday passengers flying from Britain to the US will be able to independently check whether they can fly safely and meet US health requirements for entry before they go to the airport.
Virgin has partnered with a US company called TrustAssure which uses artificial intelligence to check and verify the validity of their negative Covid-19 test that is required for travel. Passengers upload their details and test certificate via a link to a TrustAssure mobile web page. It analyses the data and certificate and within two minutes passengers get a QR code notification. Green for “Good to Go” or Red if extra information is required at check in, or if the type of test is not approved or the test has been taken more than 72 hours before departure.
Virgin’s largest partner airline, Delta, has trialled the technology on its US-bound flights without a hitch. Virgin and Delta stress that all passenger information is encrypted and held securely by TrustAssure on a voluntary basis. Virgin is currently flying a limited schedule to New York, Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Miami for essential journeys.
“Our digital health pass takes health checks to a whole new dimension,” says Shai Weiss, Virgin Atlantic chief executive. Next week’s introduction is a UK trial and the technology will be approved for general use if it proves successful.
Virgin will follow the TrustAssure trial by next month becoming the first UK airline to introduce the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Travel Pass smartphone app on flights from Britain to Barbados. From April 16 passengers will be able to upload their personal and flight details to the app. IATA has “live” links with major testing labs in the UK to verify test data. Confirmation of their negative test certificate will then be uploaded directly to the app for pre-departure clearance.
Virgin has written to the Home Office to ask to trial the IATA app on return journeys to ensure admission to the UK.
Weiss hopes all the new technology will make it easier for governments to open safe travel corridors between countries where testing regimes are strong and vaccination rates high. As well as the US and Barbados, he cites Israel, the UAE, and certain EU nations. Ministers plan to allow the resumption of international travel from May 17 but recent reports say rising infection rates overseas mean this may be postponed until July.
As well as promoting safe travel, Virgin’s move is also designed to speed up check in. Multiple checks of paper certificates can triple check in time. “People come to check in with all sorts of tests, from all sorts of providers, and our checking agents analyse the certificates to make sure that they meet the requirements. Health checks need to be digital and as seamless as possible,” Weiss says.
In future Virgin hopes to be able to add verified vaccination status to its health pass technology to make it even easier for people to fly again. Weiss says the British government should take advantage of the “remarkable” roll out of vaccines to get travel going again. “If you have been vaccinated, you should travel freely,” he said. “We cannot accept quarantine.”
He pledged that Virgin would work with ministers to ensure a passenger's vaccination status could be independently verified by the NHS.
Weiss opposes making vaccine passports compulsory and stresses that passengers who are not vaccinated can still fly provided they test negative for Covid. But he says that some routes may require proof of vaccination “and we have to be ready for that”.
